To me, Terry just looked ready to kill.

Shep strode in with his suit jacket on, tie Windsor-knotted, carrying his briefcase, all business. He sat down: ‘How are you, Terry?’

‘Fine,’ snapped Terry.

‘My name is Detective Superintendent Dan Shepard. You’ve elected to conduct this interview without a solicitor. Is that correct?’

‘Correct,’ said Terry.

‘Fine. Just so you know, Terry, before we start, Karen’s been talking, Laura’s been talking and Peter’s been talking. Do you understand?’

Terry shrugged.

‘We now know, thanks to Peter Ryan, that Karen spent the afternoon of the murder in Bethan Trott’s room at the Pines, as she’s said all along. Except she wasn’t watching telly with Bethan. She was having sex with Peter Ryan. She’s what you people in South London would call a slag, isn’t she, Terry?’

Terry’s cheek clenched.

‘Your Laura’s a pretty girl, isn’t she, Terry?’

‘Fuck off,’ spat Terry.

‘Is she a slag too, Terry?’

‘You’re brave aren’t you, copper? I bet you wouldn’t talk to me like this outside.’

‘I just ask because my colleagues at the Historic Sex Abuse team would love to get hold of the statement your Laura’s just made.’

Terry shuffled uncomfortably.

‘Imagine that, Terry? The South London press reporting that you’ve been charged with kiddie fiddling? Wouldn’t be very good for business, would it, Terry? No one wants a paedo rinsing their kiddies’ bedroom windows, do they? But that’s what’ll happen if you don’t tell me the truth today. Do you understand?’

Terry glared at Shep, who now changed tack.

‘The best thing you can do, Terry, is seek the mercy of a jury. Tell us how it all went wrong that day, how you’d no idea it would end the way it did. How you too are a victim.’

Before Terry had a chance to punch his lights out, Shep leaned over, switched on the tape recorder and announced who was in the room.

‘Terry, please tell us all your movements from lunchtime on Monday July 1, 1991. And please, don’t leave anything out.’

Terry coughed. ‘I get home from work at about three, as usual, and leave my cleaning kit in the garage. At about quarter past, I’m watching the horse racing on telly when Laura comes in.’

Terry started breathing heavily through his nose.

‘Where were your wife Pam and youngest daughter Stacey at this time?’

‘Stace’s at school, Pam’s at her mum’s.’

‘Can you describe Laura’s appearance?’

‘Blue jeans and a black top with her hair tied up.’

‘And how did she seem?’

‘She’s very agitated. She tells me Karen’s being bullied at work by a woman. Laura wants to go to the Pines and have a word with this woman. I tell her I don’t want anything to do with it.’

Terry’s short breaths cranked up another notch.

‘Please, Terry, go on.’

He shuffled in his seat again, his restless eyes looking everywhere but at Shep.

‘She keeps going on and on. About what a shit dad I am, not even standing up for his own daughters. She winds me right up.’

Terry’s heaving breaths now bordered on snorts.

‘And?’

‘I agreed to go with her. As far as I’m concerned, she’s just gonna shake this woman up a bit. Give her a fright. Nothing like what happened.’

‘Please, Terry, try to stick with the order of events if you can. I don’t understand why you went with her at all?’

‘Like I say, she says if I was a proper dad, I’d back her and Karen up.’

‘Have you been a proper dad to your three daughters, Terry?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Why would Laura accuse you of being a shit dad?’

‘It’s not easy is it? If you have kids then you’ll know. They can be … trying.’

‘I’ve got two daughters, Terry. But I don’t get pissed and hit them like you do.’

Terry’s eyes darted towards Shep, his head wobbling in rage. Shep lifted his chin defiantly: ‘Or worse.’

‘Oh, fuck off,’ shouted Terry.

‘Is this how you get, Terry? And now you’re sober. Imagine that temper after a skinful.’

Terry grimaced, turned his head away from Shep and folded his arms: ‘I don’t have to listen to this shit.’

‘Look, I know you’re not a killer, Terry,’ said Shep softly, ‘I believe you when you say you didn’t want to go with Laura that day. How did she make you go, Terry? What did she have on you?’

Terry’s hog-like snorting returned.

‘Maybe your lovely wife Pam could enlighten us? Or Lee social services?’

‘They make things up, don’t they?’ Terry spat, ‘and you can’t prove a negative. You can’t prove you never done the things they accuse you of.’

‘What was Laura going to accuse you of, Terry? Who did she threaten to tell?’

‘I never did any of the stuff she says. But people like to choose who to believe, don’t they? And Laura’s good at playing the victim, when it suits her.’

‘I bet she is,’ nodded Shep, ‘so Laura blackmails you into going with her. What happens then?’

‘I agree to drive her to the Pines. I go outside and get in the van. She comes out about five minutes later, carrying Karen’s black gym bag.

‘I drive her over to Lambeth. We get to the Pines about four. Laura tells me to park on the street outside and wait for her. She walks in past the car park barrier.’

‘Where’s the gym bag at this point?’

‘Still in the van.’

‘Go on, Terry.’

‘Next thing Laura pulls up alongside the van in Karen’s car. ‘Get in and bring the bag,’ she says. I get in and ask her what’s going on. She tells me Karen’s not well and the woman’s gone home so we’re gonna go talk to her there.

‘She parks up to use a cash machine, then drives on to Clapham. At about five twenty, she pulls up near a pub and tells me this woman should be getting home any minute. She says she doesn’t want a scene on the street. We’re gonna go inside and wait for her.’

Terry grimaced and bent forward. He clamped his hands together and stared at them.

‘I says to her “we’re just gonna tell her to leave Karen alone, right? No rough stuff.” She says “yeah, yeah, just a word. That’s all it’ll take.” We go up the steps. Laura unlocks both doors and we go in. Laura leads me up the stairs. I follow her into a bedroom at the front of the flat. We stand there a few feet from the window, waiting for this woman to get home.’

He shivered, looked up at Shep then back down at his interlocked hands, now shaking wildly.

‘Where was the gym bag?’

‘I …’ he faltered, ‘she told me to bring it in with me.’

‘Go on,’ ordered Shep, sensing that Terry was at the top of a confessional drop.

Terry started breathing hard again, in short, greedy bursts. ‘As Marion unlocks the front door, Laura tells me to get behind the bedroom door and wait until she calls me. As I’m stood there, I hear the bag unzip and her footsteps walking out onto the landing.’

Terry started blinking a lot, as if trying to bat away the images of these dreadful recollections.

‘I hear the flat door open, Marion’s feet coming up the stairs. I can see Laura through the crack in the door, crouching at the top of the stairs. Next thing, I hear a commotion …’

He squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face into his hands.

‘Go on,’ ordered Shep.

‘I hear squealing, like cats fighting. I step out and see my steel ruler in Laura’s hand, Marion crawling about on the landing, blood splashes on her face, her eyes wild, staring.’

Terry’s eyes weren’t focusing at all anymore. He was right back there.

‘Laura’s stalking her about the landing, saying: “That’ll fucking teach you. That’ll fucking teach you” over and over. I recognise the girl as Peter’s wife. She came to ours for dinner once. I cry out: “Jesus, what have you done?”’

Each breath Terry now drew sounded more primeval, guttural, strangled than the last.

‘Laura turns, glares at me, holding the ruler up between us. I’m thinking: “She’s gonna do me now.” Then she focuses on the ruler and recoils, as if she’s no idea what she’s just done. Marion gets back on her feet. She’s stumbling about. “Terry,” she says, “Terry, please?” She’s seen us both now.’